


All the Other Ages You’ve Been

by orphan_account



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Getting Older, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-20
Updated: 2015-06-20
Packaged: 2018-04-05 08:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4173366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaromir raises an eyebrow at Mitchell, because it's frankly ludicrous to try and pretend that Ekblad is blushing for no reason. </p><p>or</p><p>Jaromir Jagr is too old to deal with this threesome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Other Ages You’ve Been

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally written as comment fic for a prompt, "Sergei Gonchar (or Jaromir Jagr, Brian Gionta, any older veteran on a team with a bunch of very young players) is too old to deal with this sh*t." on writteninsweat on dreamwidth.
> 
> Much thanks to my excellent betas, ionthesparrow and S. You both helped immensely to make this a much more on point story. 
> 
> Title from Madelyn L'Engle's quote: "The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."

Jaromir has played 25 years of professional hockey. He’s not surprised when he walks into the Panthers’ dressing room and Willie Mitchell is standing so close to his rookie that Ekblad’s hair is brushing against Mitchell’s forehead. Mitchell’s had Ekblad under his wing all season, dispensing advice, planning fishing trips, pointing out a great play Ekblad’s just pulled off. Jaromir’s caught them in something less platonic, but it’s a natural extension. He’s seen it happen before. 

"Not in the dressing room, kids," he says, grabbing his skates down from his stall. They’re the only ones there so far. It’s an optional skate and most of the guys are going to the beach rather than practice. Jaromir’s tempted to skip himself, but the beach will be there a year from now. His knees might not be.

"‘Not in the dressing room’ what, old man?" Mitchell says, trying to step back subtly enough so it wasn't obvious that they had been standing so close. 

"I'm not a kid!" Ekblad says, because he is a child. He wasn't even born when Jaromir won his cups. If anything makes Jaromir feel old in this dressing room, it's the way that Ekblad and the other children insist that they're grown ups, when they're barely out of puberty, much less juniors. 

Jaromir's tied his skates on so many times that he could probably do it in his sleep, blindfolded, so he doesn't need to look down when he says, "Officially, nothing is happening in the dressing room. Because it would be stupid to do anything in the arena, where we all work, much less the dressing room, no?" He looks down anyway. It’s a bit rich of him to be calling them out on it, after all.

He does look up in time to catch the tail end of Ekblad's blush. The Panthers are tanner than your average hockey team, with the obvious exception of the Bolts, Kings, Ducks, and Yotes (Jaromir's been in the NHL for longer than four out of the five). That still doesn't hide the red coloring Ekblad's cheeks. He's mature for his age, but not that mature. Jaromir raises an eyebrow at Mitchell, because it's frankly ludicrous to try and pretend that Ekblad is blushing for no reason. 

"It won't happen again," Mitchell says. It's not quite his captain voice, but it's along the same lines. Jaromir looks at him for a beat and shrugs. 

"You should probably make sure of that," he says, pulling out his pads. He slips on his chest protector so he can velcro it up instead of looking at either of them. "You wouldn't want to forget and have someone see." 

"I--" Ekblad starts, but Mitchell puts a hand on his shoulder. For a second, even though Jarmoir knows the stats, knows Ekblad's got an extra inch, Mitchell looks taller, broader in the shoulders. Jaromir shakes his head to dispel his ghosts. Mitchell’s hair isn’t at all right anyways, cropped too short to curl.

"Are you going to say anything to management?" Mitchell asks, a stubborn lift to his chin.  


Jaromir actually laughs. Ekblad looks startled, but Mitchell just waits, his hand wrapped around the cap of Ekblad's shoulder. "No," Jaromir says, finishing up with his pads. "No, I'm not. I'll leave your fate in your hands." He’ll save his breath; it’s not like they’d listen to anything he would say anyway. 

Mitchell nods, and he squeezes Ekblad’s shoulder, probably for comfort. Jaromir tosses off a quick salute before heading down the hallway to the ice. He skates lazy figure eights waiting to see if anyone else is going to show up to skate. In the end it's not many; him, Ekblad and Mitchell, Hayes, Barkov, Huberdeau, and Luongo. 

Jaromir spends most of his time working with Hayes, playing keep away while trying to teach Hayes a few things. "Keep your ass out, use it to hold me off," he barks. 

He’s got better at teaching as he's got older. It helps that he's had to think about hockey more as it became less easy. "Yes, good," he says, trying to move Hayes off the puck and failing.

Hayes holds him of for another minute, but then Jaromir goes between his legs and fishes the puck out before rifling it to the goal. Luongo picks it off easily, but it's worth it for the outraged look Hayes gives him. 

"Can't be teaching you all my tricks," he says with a wink.

Eventually the three other forwards end up clustering together, trying to out-fancy each other in a lose triangle of passing. "Kids these days, eh?" Jaromir says, leaning against Luongo's goal. "Too cool to hang with their elders." 

"Not all of them," Luongo says. He doesn't point over to where Ekblad is following Mitchell around like a lovesick puppy, but he doesn't have to. Jaromir's been paying attention to them out of the corner of his eye for the entire practice. 

"Well, you know, that boy's a sponge. Always trying to learn something new." Jaromir says. He tries to make it sound casual, as if he would never have questions about why a younger D man was spending so much time with someone almost a two decades his senior. 

"Is that what they're calling it these days?" Luongo says, almost under his breath. 

"You have a problem?" Jaromir's surprised at his own harsh tone. 

"No," Luongo says, unflappable as always. "Just...noticing, I guess." 

Jaromir might be projecting but Luongo sounds a bit sad.

Jaromir keeps skating after everyone else has cleared the ice, trying not to think about much other than the way that his blades dig in and cut across everyone else's marks. He leaves when he notices the zamboni's waiting on him. 

He's surprised/not-surprised when he gets to the parking lot and Mitchell's waiting for him. "Where's the kid?" he asks, because he’s been alone long enough with his thoughts to get a bit mean. 

"I sent him home to Megan," Mitchell says.

Jaromir's eyebrow's skyrocket, because he hadn't even remembered that Mitchell was married. But the second Mitchell says that it snaps into place. Mitchell and his wife after games, arm in arm but open enough that there’s space for a third. Ekblad and Mitchell’s wife laughing at something, comfortable in a way that the younger players usually aren’t with the older wives. Mitchell watching them both with a smile lurking in the corner of his mouth. Ekblad fits in with the Mitchells like a stick in a pair of hockey gloves. Comfortable. Jaromir's surprised he didn't recognize it earlier. He knows intimately what that looks like.

Mitchell looks uncomfortable for the first time. "Look, we're not hurting anyone." 

Jaromir takes a deep breath and lets the air hiss out between his teeth. He thinks about, and discards, three different things he would have said at 22, 30, and even 38. "I guess not," he finally says. "Don't worry about it, Mitchell. I'm not going to say anything." 

"Thanks," Mitchell says, the tension oozing out of his shoulders.

"No problem." 

Jaromir takes the long way back to his apartment. He hasn't called most of the places he's lived home for years. He drops his bag in the entryway, and goes out to the beach that makes up his backyard. When he was 20 (stupid) he once claimed all he needed were beaches, girls, and money. He's finally got the first. He's had his ups and downs with the other two, but mostly ups. It's not how he imagined his life to be at 24, 33, or even 41. It's not what his parents' lives looked like, or even how Mario and Nathalie's lives ended up, four kids and a mansion in Pittsburgh. 

He watches the ocean and wonders what Ekblad's life will look like in 20 years, if he'll wring all the hockey out of his body he can, or if he'll find something that he loves as much as hockey to help him build a life outside the rink. If he's already found that. 

It's got to work for some people, after all. 

Jaromir wiggles his toes in the sand, squinting into the setting sun. He snorts. He's getting maudlin in his old age. Next thing he knows he'll be telling the kids about the Prague Spring and life under the iron curtain. No one needs that. There's still hockey to play, after all. 

Jaromir rubs the sand off his feet on the porch, tracking only a little inside. He's not too worried, the cleaning service will take care of it tomorrow. He catches a bit of the news before taking a selfie sprawled out on the couch. He fiddles with his cell phone a while before posting it, without a caption. He looks at the grey hairs and the laugh lines around his eyes, before flipping to the phone. 

He hopes they haven't changed the number.

It rings a few times before a familiar voice says, "Hello?" 

"Hey, Mario, it's Jaro. Been a while."


End file.
